[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 44 (Thursday, April 18, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2909-S2910]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        PRESCRIPTION DRUG COSTS

  Ms. STABENOW. Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to 
my colleagues today about an incredibly important issue, and that is 
the question of the rising costs of health care, particularly as it 
relates to the cost of prescription drugs. I think the headline in this 
week's Washington Post column by David Broder said it all: Our health 
care system is in a ``death cycle.''
  The greatest country in the world, the most extensive health care 
system in the world, most sophisticated system, and we have a respected 
columnist saying it is in a death cycle. I suggest one of the major 
reasons for this is the uncontrollable cost of prescription drugs in 
this country.
  There is something wrong when we are involved as taxpayers, as 
Americans, in funding research for prescription drugs--which I 
support--providing tax credits for research and development for the 
companies to be able to do incredibly important, lifesaving research. 
Yet we in the United States of America pay the highest prices of anyone 
in the world. That is not an exaggeration--higher than anyone in the 
world.
  If you are uninsured--and particularly for our seniors who may use 18 
different medications in a year; that is the average--if you are 
uninsured, if you are someone walking in and paying retail, you pay the 
most of anyone anywhere in the United States and the world.
  This is extremely troubling. We are not talking about buying 
something that is optional; we are talking about lifesaving 
medications. Whether I am talking to my hospital administrators or the 
Big Three auto companies or small businesses or senior citizens or a 
family with a disabled child or anyone who is involved in purchasing 
prescription drugs, I hear the same thing over and over: We have a 
system that is broken. It is broken. We have to fix it.

  I am here today asking my colleagues on the other side of the aisle 
to join with us in that sense of urgency about fixing this problem.
  Whenever we talk about costs, we hear from the companies that in 
order to lower costs we will lose valuable research. None of us wants 
to lose research. We support that. We support funding research. We will 
do that again this year. But the facts do not show us that we have to 
suffer and lose research in order to lower costs.
  We know that among the largest companies, on average, they spend 
twice as much on advertising and promotion as they do on research. We 
also know in an average year there will be about 88,000 people working 
to promote and to advertise prescription drugs and on average 48,000 
people involved in research. There are 88,000 people involved in 
promoting and advertising, 48,000 involved in research.
  I think every American knows, just by turning on the television set, 
that

[[Page S2910]]

we have seen an explosion in advertising. Unfortunately, what has 
happened is we have seen that explosion in advertising causing an 
explosion in our costs of 18 percent to 20 percent a year.
  Something is wrong when there are almost twice as many people 
involved in promoting a drug and advertising a drug as there are people 
researching new medications. There is also something wrong when we can 
go across the bridge or through the tunnel to Canada--Mr. President, 
that is 5 minutes in Michigan. We can go across the bridge and we can 
cut our costs in half for American-made, FDA-approved medications.
  I have twice taken a group of seniors across the border, going 
through the Canadian medical society, and then going into the Canadian 
pharmacies. We have seen dramatic results. I will just share a couple.
  In Michigan, Zocor, a drug to reduce cholesterol, costs $109.73 for 
50 5-milligram tablets. In Canada, the exact same prescription costs 
$46.17--$109.73 and $46.17. Since we as taxpayers in the United States 
have helped to subsidize the research--which I support doing--I also 
want to see us get a price break for the tax dollars that are helping 
to do this.
  I also know that tamoxifen, a breast-cancer-treating drug, is 
available for about $136 in Michigan. When we went to Canada, with 
breast cancer patients, they got it for $15. There is something wrong 
with the laws that say our people cannot freely go back and forth--our 
hospitals, our businesses--and get those lower costs.
  There is something wrong with a system where small businesses are 
seeing 25, 30, 35 percent or more increases in their health care 
premiums. I have had small business people come to me saying they will 
have to drop their insurance because they cannot afford the premium 
increases. The majority of that is the cost of prescription drugs.
  We have a lot of work to do. There is something wrong in a country as 
blessed and as wealthy as the United States when there are seniors who 
got up this morning, sat at the kitchen table, and said: Do I eat today 
or do I take my medicine? Do I pay the electric bill or do I take my 
medicine?
  We can do better than that. We have an obligation to do better than 
that. I believe one piece of that is Medicare coverage and updating our 
Medicare system to cover prescription drugs. But I believe it is also 
much more than that. I believe it is making generics available once the 
patent has run its course and finding ways to make sure those laws are 
enforced and not undermined. It is making sure that research is done, 
and we reward and help fund that, and invest in that more than we are 
investing in advertising. It is making sure our business community can 
afford premiums, that we have competition across the border, making 
sure we are able to provide prescriptions at the lowest possible cost 
while still allowing important research to happen and our 
pharmaceutical industry to thrive.

  I believe we can do all of that if we have a focus on the right 
values and priorities when it comes to this debate.
  I simply say it is now time for a sense of urgency. If a child in our 
family is sick or if we have a parent who needs lifesaving medication 
and can't afford it, if we have someone in our family who needs an 
operation, we feel a sense of urgency. We feel a sense of urgency if 
someone needs nursing home care or if someone needs some other kind of 
health care.
  We need that same kind of sense of urgency when it comes to public 
policy on health care.
  I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join with us in 
the coming weeks to lower the fastest growing part of that health care 
dollar; that is, the cost of prescription drugs and lifesaving 
medication.
  We can do better than we are doing for our seniors and our families. 
We can do better than we are doing for the business community. We can 
do better than we are doing for everybody in our country if we are 
willing to get to work. I hope we are going to do that.
  I yield the floor.

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